Birds and Butterflies – Spring Migration on the Bruce Peninsula

Posted May 18, 2015

We spent this past weekend, the Victoria Day long weekend, in Tobermory at the tip of the Bruce Peninsula. There was still ice on our bay, and several kilometers out into Lake Huron, just three weeks ago.  It’s gone now, but that cold water has a great influence on the local weather.  We had single […]

Global “Big Day” of Birding

Posted May 14, 2015

On May 9th, people all over the world participated in the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s fundraiser Global Big Day, tallying all the bird species that could be identified in one 24 hour period.  Globally, over half the world’s know species were tallied (incredible!), and the Cornell team of crack birders, on the ground in Panama, […]

Counting Crows

Posted May 4, 2015

Fellow Outdoor Ed. Guy, Al Woodhouse and myself, have an annual competition to see who can see more species of birds at his respective outdoor centre each year.  My yearly totals for the past 3 years have been 103, 96 and 89. Al generally beats me by 15 or so. This year I have re-doubled […]

Spring Wildflowers

Posted May 3, 2015

I had my first chance to get out and explore the wetlands and forest trails at Blair this weekend.  With the warm weather we’ve had the last week or so, I found many of the spring wildflowers  in bloom.  Some plants flower for a only a short time, and it’s easy to miss out on […]

Trail Cam Videos

Posted April 22, 2015

I have had the trail camera on a mink den, with no luck lately. Just a couple of passers-by. [wpvideo 9Ty97G6B] [wpvideo XlxjVDJE]

Red Squirrel Babies

Posted April 21, 2015

While cleaning out our bird houses, we pulled out a nest that had four baby red squirrels in it. We carefully put the nest back in the box with the babies intact.

Recovering mink

Posted March 24, 2015

I left the trail camera at the mink den for three nights before retrieving it. There were sixty 30-second videos on it. Twenty videos missed whatever set the camera off. Thirty-one videos had raccoons walking by. There was one grey squirrel, and one red squirrel. Seven videos had the mink on them. It looks like the injured foot […]

March Break, First Maple Syrup

Posted March 23, 2015

March Break weather in southern Ontario provided just the right balance of cold nights and warm days to persuade our sugar maple trees to give up their first runs of sap. Making maple syrup is easy.  Follow these simple steps: Drill hole in sugar maple tree, tap in spile, hang bucket, and add a lid. […]

More on Mink…

Posted March 20, 2015

I too hope the Laurel Creek mink will survive with this injury.  I imagine swimming would be difficult, and much of a mink’s food comes from the stream – fish, frogs, crayfish. My daughter Sydney and I went out for a walk along the Grand River yesterday with our cameras, but both of us broke […]

Injured mink

Posted March 20, 2015

Yesterday I got another video of the mink at Laurel Creek. It doesn’t seem to have any use of its front left paw. I hope this injury doesn’t affect the potential for young mink at this site. I suspect our resident is a female. It has been at this den all winter, and I read that […]

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